


the ocean is mahogany

by Ghostlaments



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Best Friends, Growing Up, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-15 20:04:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8070850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostlaments/pseuds/Ghostlaments
Summary: Rogue's eyes were never really red. Red was such a blanket term.    If drowning takes years, that's what Sting is doing.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I found out three of my favourite stories are written by the same author, lmao. So i spent all day reading all their other stuff, lol.
> 
> I wrote this instead of working on my actual fic, lmao. This is related to that, but i couldn’t really slide it in there because it’s probably starkly different in terms of style, so here. 
> 
> (you don't have to read that fic to understand this one)
> 
> Inspired a bit by: First day of my Life by Bright Eyes, From Afar by Vance Joy, moon strut on FF.net
> 
>  **For:** BecauseSin , ‘cause they write rlly nice Stingue and also always comment on my fic. They’re just great, really.

Sting is ten when he first meets Rogue. He’s known Rogue before, but not really – they’ve been in the same class sometimes. 1st grade, 4th grade. Nothing but a familiar face. A boy who never talks much, and wears dark colours, colours too dark for a kid his age.

 

They’re paired up in gym class, for a game or exercise he can’t remember.  He only knows that they worked together _surprisingly well,_ and that he looked at Rogue’s red eyes for the first time, _really_ looked, and realized they weren’t really red.

 

 _Mahogany_ is the name he’ll find later, in art class during 6th grade.

 

“Want to hang out after school?” he’ll ask when they’re changing in the locker room. Rogue will look at him for a long time – long enough for Sting to grow uncomfortable. No one’s ever shot him down before. He’s only ten.

 

“Sure,” Rogue will say, an almost smile pulling at his lips.

  
  
  


Sting is eleven when Rogue sleeps over for the first time. It’s an exciting deal, as sleepovers always are when you’re eleven. He’s picked out movies to watch and even persuaded his dad to buy chips and pop and pizza for dinner, and he’s got a bunch of games they can play when they get bored.

 

He even cleans his room and sets up a bed on the ground for Rogue to sleep. He’s got everything covered.

 

They play _Mario Kart_ and _Lego Star Wars_ until dinner, and then his father suggests they watch the movies that Sting has picked out. Sting races Rogue into the living room and gleefully starts the first movie.

 

The movies are hilarious and wonderfully above their age limit. His father won’t mind if they watch an 13+ film, and even though most of the jokes go over his head, Sting loves it.

 

But what he find more entertaining is watching Rogue’s eyebrows go up in surprise, or when a joke is particularly understandable and hilarious, and Rogue laughs, throwing his head back and covering his mouth with his hands. Sting has never seen him laugh like that, and it fills his chest with happy warmth. He likes watching Rogue watch tv, even though he’ll never admit it. (he’s only eleven, but even he knows that it’s a bit creepy.)

  
  
  


Sting is twelve when he calls Rogue his best friend for the first time. Sting has many friends – all fleeting and temporary – but not Rogue. Rogue doesn’t say much, and perhaps that’s why Sting likes him. He won’t judge and he won’t tell Sting to shut up. And Sting provides a barrier from social things that Rogue shys from. It’s a symbiotic relationship.

 

“You can’t call a friendship a symbiotic relationship,” Rogue says in response when Sting voices this idea to him. He’s lying on Sting’s bed, reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

 

Sting huffs and asks “why not? That’s what it is, isn’t it? We help each other, so we both win in this relationship, don’t we?”

 

“It’s a friendship,” Rogue replies, as if that reply makes sense in the slightest.

 

Three years later, Sting thinks he understands.

  
  
  


Sting is fourteen and a half when he experiences jealousy for the first time. Jealousy like no other, really.

 

It happens when he’s waiting for Rogue to finish class so they can eat lunch together. His class should be over, so why is it 5 minutes later than when he should've come out? Sting kicks the wall a little, feeling very frustrated.

 

Rogue does come out, chatting happily with a girl with white hair Sting has never seen. They walk right past him, and down the hall. Rogue doesn't even look back for him. It takes everything in his power not to tear out his own hair. And then Rogue’s.

 

In that moment, he _hates_ that girl and Rogue. He's never hated anyone before. And he's not completely sure why. Just that she's taking up all of Rogue’s attention, and _what, is she his new best friend? He was probably late so he could talk to her! He made me wait for him and now he’s ignoring me?_

 

Later, he’ll drag himself into the cafeteria and see Rogue’s eyes go from confused worry to relieved joy when he sees him. He’ll find out that Rogue stayed behind because the teacher needed two people to clean up, and assumed that Sting would’ve left without him.

 

_“This was my cleaning partner,” he announces after apologizing. Sting makes a point to sit down right beside Rogue, and squint suspiciously at her. If she notices the hostility, she doesn't let on._

 

_“Rogue says you own a cat named Lector!” The girl gushes merrily. “I've always wanted a cat, but I guess two fish and a snake are pretty cool.”_

 

_“You have a snake??” Sting perks up, former hostility fading._

 

Her name is Yukino. She's just like him, he’ll learn, and she’ll become his _second_ best friend.

  
  
  


Sting is sixteen when he experiences the first day of his life. It happens in class, stupidly enough. It should’ve been a normal day, really. The sky was a blanket of grey, the kind of day where it doesn’t rain and it isn’t sunny, the kind that Sting has grown to love, strangely enough. Something about them is incredible all by itself. They put him at ease.

 

It’s in art class again. He’s not sure what it is about art class, he doesn’t really have an interest in art, but he always likes being in art class. Maybe it’s playing with the colours. He enjoys making a list of the colours he likes, that he knows. Colours that appear in his everyday life. Blue becomes Cobalt. Blonde becomes Daffodil. Black becomes Charcoal. Mahogany stays Mahogany.

 

Rogue isn’t there, for reasons unbeknownst to Sting. Perhaps that’s why he’s preoccupied his mind, toned out everyone else. This is probably not even what he’s suppose to be doing for art class. Cobalt. Daffodil. Charcoal. Mahogany. He doesn’t know much about colours, but enough to know that isn’t a very compromising palette. There’s not much to do with these colours if he’s painting.

 

(He uses them anyway.)

 

Halfway through the class, Rogue arrives, at 11:46. Sting knows because he was looking at the clock when the door burst open. “Sorry I’m late,” he announces to the teacher. She scolds him briefly, and then he hurries to his seat, and hits the chair beside Sting, out of breath.

 

(Somewhere in Sting head, a bell rings, sharp and startling.)

 

He stares at Rogue, and relief – why relief? What had he been dreading? – fills his chest, along with a new feeling, one Sting usually gets after one of the football stars chats him up at lunch. He feels like he’s seeing Rogue for the first time (ridiculous, he’s well into the thousands, millions), with his charcoal hair and soft-looking skin (how does he do that) and his red _red_ eyes.

 

 _Mahogany,_ he thinks on impulse, but that’s the furthest thing from his mind.

 

(Really, this explains everything — why he hasn't shown any interest in anyone in a while, the joy he’s felt when just _being_ with Rogue, the pit in his stomach whenever Rogue isn’t around, everything.)

  
  
  


He avoids Rogue for a day or two, until his best friend hunts him down (quite literally,) after classes. Sting is very good at running from his problems. His problem is Rogue. He’s very good at running from Rogue. Rogue has to pin him down outside of the bowling alley by sitting on his stomach and tying up his wrists with an extra shoelace (that’s been sitting in his pocket for a month), just to get him to stop.

 

(it really does not help Sting’s problem)

 

(if anything, it makes it immensely worse.)

 

(Sting has never been so desperate to flee anything until this moment.)

 

“Why are you avoiding me?” Rogue grits out, squeezing his thighs around Sting’s hips when he struggles to escape. Sting immediately stops struggling. And breathing, honestly.

 

“Just – dealing with things –” Sting chokes out, his face going red. “Wanna – be alone.”

 

“What things?” Rogue asks, eyes ablaze with concern. Sting knows he’s thinking about bad things, _illegal_ things, things that can hurt Sting. People that might hurt Sting.

 

“Not – just feelings.” Sting assures him, and that’s all he can say. When Rogue realizes he won’t relent anything else, he unties him, and drops down beside him on the grass.

 

“You can tell me,” he says, which means what it means, but also _I’m worried about you._

 

“I know,” Sting says.

 

( _I would if I could.)_

 

( _but i really, really can’t.)_

  
  
  


Sting is seventeen and a half when he starts dating again. He starts again, because he knows, that Rogue is more prone to jealousy than him, and he hopes–

 

“Who’s this,” Rogue asks, game controller in one hand and a bunch of chips in the other. He’s referring to the dark-haired (it’s ebony) boy sitting next to Sting, lazily draping an arm behind him. Sting brightens considerably.

 

“This,” He says with flourish, wrapping his arm around the boy (really, he’s very attractive, nice body too,) to make the statement. “Is my boyfriend. We met at starbucks. We’ve being going out for a week now.” he makes an effort to emphasis the _going out_ part.

 

Rogue stares at him with an unreadable expression on his face. For a moment, Sting’s hopes lift, and then are dashed like glass on the pavement when Rogue almost smiles at his boyfriend and says “nice to meet you. I was a bit worried, it’s been a long time since Sting dated anyone. Chips?”

 

Sting excuses himself midway through a round of _Super Smash Bros_ and promptly goes into the kitchen to smash his head against the stove.

 

He dumps him almost a week later and it’s messy. But Rogue is there to comfort him, and Sting would take the messy breakup over again just so Rogue will let him bury his head in his lap and cry.

 

Perhaps he’s taking advantage of his heartbreak that wasn’t really heartbreak, but whatever. Sting’s selfish. So what.

  
  
  


The next boy has tawny brown hair and amber eyes, and the one after that has eyes like the sea and golden hair and Sting forgets about both of them almost immediately.

  
  
  


The next is a boy with spice brown eyes and hair to match. His name is Sapere. It’s not english, but Sting will never remember what language it is. Sting likes him, and so does Rogue, _unfortunately._ They get along swimmingly.

 

He breaks up with him almost a month later. It’s the longest he’s ever gone. Sapere doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, he looks as if he’s been expecting this.

 

_“I’m sorry,” says Sting._

 

_“No, i know,” says Sapere. “It wouldn’t have worked out anyway. Not with…” his eyes trail to the building, where Rogue is waiting. He looks back at Sting, with those orange-brown eyes full of understanding._

 

_Sting feels awful in that moment. “We can still be friends,” he tells him._

 

_Sapere smiles then, but his eyes are sad. “I would like that,” he says. “But no. We can’t.”_

 

_It’s quiet for a minute, and then Sapere speaks up again. “Are you ever going to tell him?”_

 

_Sting looks away, back at the building. “I know what he’ll say,” he relents finally. Which means no. he won’t. but Sting knows he can’t keep this inside him forever. It’s pouring from the cracks in his skin, everything he does. Leaking from him in streams, pooling at his feet. “Maybe one day.”_

 

_“Good luck,” says Sapere, and kisses him gently on the cheek. It’s the first time Sting has almost been in love with him, with anyone that isn’t Rogue._

 

 

 

“Rogue,” says Sting. He’s resting his head in his lap, and it’s heaven. Law and Order is playing on the TV, nothing but background noise. He wonders if he’s ever paid attention to the tv, or if he’s always watched Rogue’s face and the way he expresses his emotions in the most subtle of ways. “Rogue,” Sting says gain, because he doesn’t think Rogue has heard him.

 

He’s ready. The first year of college is over, and here they are, living together in a tiny apartment. He should’ve done this before they went to college, but he didn’t.

 

“Yea?” Rogue says, and turns his head to look down at him. Sting steels himself, and then Rogue looks down at him with his red eyes, and Sting loses all and everything he was about to say in that moment. He stares back, lost. He can see every flake of colour, every speck that’s more orange or pink, and the reflection of the tv in his pupils.

 

“Haha,” comes out of his mouth. “I can see Law and Order in your eyes.”

 

He hardly hears himself as he slips farther and farther, under the waves of red. _Drowning_ , Sting thinks, at the back of his mind. He pictured the ocean to be bluer than this. He pictured drowning to be scarier than this.

 

 

_Mahogany, mahogany, mahogany._

 

 

_._

 

_._

 

_._

**Author's Note:**

> **2k seems to be my natural word limit. Strange.**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> **anyway, bonus cuz i didn't want to put it on the end:**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Rogue is in his second year of college when he realizes for himself. He can’t blame himself, Sting’s always told him that he’s denser than a brick when it comes to relationships. 
> 
> “I love you,” says Sting, and Rogue knows it’s fake, knows it’s an act, knows Sting is only saying that because Lucy is there and he has to.
> 
> It feels so real,
> 
>  
> 
> _(why couldn’t it be real?)_
> 
>  
> 
> Rogue has never had these kinds of thoughts and it scares him. Scares him how he wants nothing but to be with Sting for the rest of the night, but to also leave, how he needs to be simultaneously with and away from Sting. 
> 
> He’s looking at Sting, staring into his blue _blue_ eyes.
> 
> Everything seems to light on fire. The room melts away, dark blue lava around his feet. Rogue is warm, too warm, even though he has no coat and outside it’s almost cold enough to snow. He’s warm, he’s on fire, burning in this cold hue of a colour.
> 
> He runs. Maybe if he runs, runs fast enough, the wind will put out the blaze, but that doesn’t seem likely.
> 
> Eventually, the fire dies down, leaving nothing but dark blue coals, blazing in his chest.
> 
>  
> 
> _Later, much later, he’ll ask Sting about the colour. “What would you call this?” he asks, pointing to his computer screen._
> 
>  
> 
> _Sting looks at it for only a moment. “Ah,” he says, “that’s cobalt, isn’t it?”_
> 
>  
> 
> Cobalt flames, Cobalt embers.
> 
> Cobalt, cobalt, cobalt.


End file.
